Gallop Points to Weaker Employment Report Tomorrow

Gallup released their latest employment poll today and the news doesn't bode well for tomorrow's January employment report. According to the most recent survey U.S. employment, without seasonal adjustment, increased to 8.6% as of the end of January and 8.7% as of February 1st. Either way you look at it the recent upward trend is the opposite of what we want to be seeing at this point.

The percentage of U.S. employees who are working part time but want full-time work increased sharply to 10.1% in January, from 9.8% in December. The January reading is also substantially higher than the 9.1% of January 2011 and is the highest percentage for this segment of the workforce since Gallup began monitoring it in January 2010.

Underemployment, which is a measure that combines the percentage of workers who are unemployed with the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, surged to 18.7% in January. This is substantially worse than the 18.3% in December and is only slightly below the 19.0% of a year ago.

Lastly, the percentage of individuals employed FULL-TIME by an employer has dropped drastically in recent weeks and doesn't bode well for future employment figures. The decline in the percentage employed full time shows that much of the employment figures that we have witnessed recently are likely in temporary and contract positions. Easy to hire and terminate with lower benefit costs - this remains a driver to maintain corporate profitability at the expense of the individual.

The takeaway here is that these numbers do not bode well for a strong employment report tomorrow. We are expecting numbers to come in well below expectations but will publish our monthly Real Employment Situation Report tomorrow after the release.